Two weeks ahead of the first round of school assignments, Boston Public School officials are still going back and forth with community members over the controversial decision to close the Mattahunt Elementary School and transform it into an early education center.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education determined last September that the Mattahunt was designated Level 4 “under review.” The school, which has been serving more than 600 students between K-0 and 5th grade, would have to make a dramatic improvement or be subject to state takeover at Level 5.

In late October, BPS Superintendent Tommy Chang sent a letter to Mattahunt parents that laid out a preliminary plan to revamp the struggling school. The proposal, as presented to and approved by the School Committee after several meetings, will close Mattahunt Elementary on June 30 and re-open it on July 1 serving K-0 to first grade students.

In a letter to Boston education officials last week, members of Mattahunt Parent, the Haitian Parents Association, and Mattapan United objected once again to the plan. “We continue to believe that this plan inflicts unnecessary trauma and displacement that harm our children,” they wrote.  

Officials say the $600,000 poured into the school annually since its 2012 drop to Level 4 status has helped with incremental gains, although not enough to boost the school’s standardized test scores, which have fallen into the first percentile statewide. Chang’s plan is to refocus on the most successful component of the Mattahunt — early childhood education.

The student body is overwhelmingly composed of students of color — 70 percent are black and 25 percent are Hispanic. And 76 percent of the students are classified as “high-needs pupils.”

“Boston Public Schools is working diligently to provide the best possible educational opportunities for students in Mattapan,” BPS officials wrote in a statement issued on Tuesday. “The BPS Office of Engagement is working tirelessly with families of the Mattahunt to help students transition into a quality school of their choice. The future Mattapan Early Elementary School will serve as a model for early childhood education — implementing inclusion and trauma-sensitive practices, an extended learning day, and a Haitian Creole-English dual language instructional program to provide accelerated outcomes for our youngest students.”

Across the city, parents and students are completing their registrations and outlining their school assignment preferences. Of the 607 students currently enrolled in the Mattahunt, officials say that BPS has completed cases for 264 students, or 43 percent.

Current Mattahunt students in K-0 through K-2 will have the highest priority for seats in the new early elementary school, according to the transition documents. Mattahunt students required to select new facilities will also be given school assignment priority just below those with siblings for school preference. As all other schools in the district are Level 3 or above, every student would be placed into a higher-quality school.

The groups objecting to the decision to close the school want it reversed by Friday, Feb. 3, the end of the first round of BPS school assignment. Any students who have not completed the transition selection process by then will not be given higher priority for school choice in the later rounds.

Parents and community members have argued against what they say is a decision deployed as a last resort, without input from the affected groups. They pitched three alternative proposals in November, asking that the school be transformed into an innovation school with increased flexibility, extending the Level 4 status and enacting a new or modified turnaround plan, or extending the status while appointing a receiver reporting to BPS authorities.

In the end, the School Committee voted in late November to go forward with the superintendent’s plan, and that decision was affirmed at a Board of Elementary and Secondary Education hearing.

In last week’s letter, opponents to the plan wrote, “We also believe that we have been denied our fundamental human right to participatory, transparent and accountable decision making about a valuable educational institution in our community.”

Two elected officials who initially supported the BPS plan for closure, state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry and City Councillor Andrea Campbell, now say they oppose it.

In his State of the City speech on Tuesday night, Mayor Martin Walsh made no mention of the Mattahunt situation as he announced that the city will be investing $1 billion over a ten-year period in Boston’s school buildings along with offering “free, high-quality pre-kindergarten to every single 4-year-old in our city.”